Crafting A Valentines Swag

I really like to make things, especially when they are for decorating my home or giving as gifts. Here's a cute swag I made for my hutch. I wanted it to have an old fashioned feel to it, but still have the cutesy look. Here's how I did it...

I purchased some little 2-3 inch wooden hearts to use for another craft idea, and I used them as a pattern for my hearts.

I traced around the wooden heart,then added about 1/2 inch all they way around so that when I sewed it together it wouldn't be too small to work with. I traced my pattern on a piece of paper several times and wrote words in there that I wanted to embroider on the hearts. I did this so I would have an idea what would fit....sweetheart wasn't gonna fit, so I used words like Love, Sweet, Nice and Cute. :) If you don't like freehanding writing, type the words on the computer in a font you like, print them out big and use them to trace.

The materials I used were some muslin I had laying around, some cotton quilt batting (the thin kind, not that thick polyester stuff), some red embroidery thread, cotton lace with an old fashioned feel to it, and some wooden red beads I had left over from Christmas crafting.

Using my heart pattern, for each heart I cut out 2 hearts of muslin and one heart of batting. I traced the "word" onto one of my muslin cut out hearts and embroidered it red. As you can see I wasn't trying to make this look like smoothe script, it's easy stitching.

Then I layed the embroidered piece ON TOP of the batting heart coutout. Place the second muslin heart on top of that, like a sandwich with the batting on the outside. There is no right or wrong side to muslin, but if you are using a fabric that has a right or wrong side, here's what you want to remember. Put the batting on the WRONG side of the embroidered piece, then put the two fabric pieces RIGHT sides together. Stich them all together with a 1/4 inch seam leaving just about 1 1/2 inch space to turn it right side out.

Turn and press with an iron, don't worry about closing up the opening, just fold it in nicely and press it into place. Once you stitch around the edge with the blanket stitch it will keep it closed.

Here is how to do the blanket stitch around the edge. Tie a knot in your thread, and bring it through that opening so that your knot is inside the heart, bringing the needle up along the fine edge of your heart. Work your way around the edge:

Bring your needle forward about 1/4 inch and put into the fabric just off the edge as show in here...

As you push the needle out through the fine edge of the heart, keep the thread to the back, you are kind of making a loop.

Pull the needle all the way through, taking up the slack in your thread.

Snug it up and you have made a stitch, repeat this all the way around. PRACTICE on a scap first. :)

After you have finished as many hearts as you want (I made 5). Lay out your lace, beads and hearts on the ground, decide what you want it to look like, where you want the beads, or if you want them at all. :)

Using Ecru colored thread to match your lace, sew the beads in place along the lace.

Make hangers from the top of your hearts with 2-4 beads (vary lengths ever other heart). Sew them to the bottom of the lace and then hang where ever you like. :)

Simple and cute, just what I wanted...Happy Crafting!